Eliuteria

Chapter 20

Aerias, clean and fed had fallen asleep within minutes on the sofa and Tau didn't hesitate getting to business. He immediately started to question why I was so sure Juleen knew they were working with the resistance. I'd left the horrible details out of the letter, but didn't resist telling him now. Some of it, I couldn't revisit, but they didn't need all of that. Ro had mentioned once that he was skilled at interrogation and that was the reason so many feared him. I didn't want to think about him, about either of them, doing that to anyone.

"He had your family mark," I said. "The, uh... interrogator recognized it because that's when he ended it."

"So they don't have any evidence against us."

I shook my head but didn't let this go. "Juleen is impatient," I said, taking another sip of wine and enjoying the lightness in my head as a result. I wanted to keep that feeling for as long as I could. "He wants to arrest you," I glanced at each of the Morri men in front of me, "both of you."

Tau shook his head as if the idea was ridiculous. But I had heard it with my own ears. I had been explicitly told to get proof to move this forward. My own survival depended on it. I hadn't told them that part. They knew what Juleen wanted of me, but they didn't know what violence he had threatened me with if I didn't get them to incriminate themselves.

"He doesn't want a war."

"He believed he will have the approval of your father," I said to Tau and then looked to Ro, "and with the support of Eoezelle, he doesn't believe Sieraul will stand against him. Your man was caught smuggling weapons across the border to aid the resistance. He only needs confirmation that the man was yours."

"Xuri was outcast," Tau explained. "When he is identified, they will know he has been disgraced and outcast from my family and my people for a long time. Short of admitting it, there is no connection that Juleen can find." And they weren't careless enough to admit to anything. I didn't let myself think about what that meant for me.

"How long have you been helping them?" I asked.

"Since you convinced us."

"I convinced you?" I asked laughing easily thanks to the wine.

Tau rolled his eyes, completely unamused. "You convinced him."

My attention snapped to Ró and a grin spread across my lips. He kept his eyes adverted from my gaze, despite my effort to catch them, but I didn't allow that to deter me. He'd been quiet again, keeping his distance from me and I was bothered by that. After the way he'd looked at me so concerned, after how he shared his emotions with me, I thought he'd decided to ignore the warnings from his friend and be real. I wondered then, if he'd only dropped his guard briefly when he realized whatever Tau had gone out to do was successful and we were actually alone. He'd only shared his emotions out of necessity, like the first time. Only he wasn't trying to convince me of his motives but trying to help me through something admittedly awful. "I convinced you to help them?"

"We cannot give away information, but we are doing our best to make sure they are prepared next time."

When the attack had been confirmed and the paestra celebrated the deaths of innocents, I had thought he didn't care. That a few lives was nothing to him in the grand scheme. I had been wrong.

"You never told me."

Ro's lips formed a thin line and then he took a sip of his own wine before finally meeting my eyes. "I didn't think it was important."

I opened my mouth ready to argue because he damn well knew that was an important piece of information to me, but Tau's loud clearing of this throat made me stop short. I glanced toward the noise and saw the warning on his face and I knew. Ro knew exactly how important to me it was that they were helping the resistance. That had been exactly why he had never told me. At Tau's pressing, Ro had withheld the information to maintain a distance between us.